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Making Peace by Serving Wings

ONCE A HERO, NOW THE HOST Darryl Strawberry at Strawberry’s Sports Grill in Douglaston, Queens.Credit
Richard Perry/The New York Times

IT was 2:30 p.m. on a recent Friday, and Darryl Strawberry was sitting in a brick-walled sports bar in Douglaston, Queens, down a cul-de-sac near the Long Island Rail Road station. There was no entourage, no adoring fans — just a half-finished milkshake and the remains of a plate of Philly cheese steak egg rolls.

Wearing a white baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, with sunglasses perched on the bill, Mr. Strawberry unfolded his 6-foot-6 frame and walked the restaurant floor in a loping gait with a hitch in the step. It was a cocky strut, familiar to any baseball fan from 17 years of ninth-inning strolls from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box.

He walked past his framed Mets jersey — No. 18 — and approached two men in their 40s who were sitting in the corner and extended a friendly hand. After years of playing the superstar and temperamental bad boy, Darryl Strawberry was ready to go to work.

This summer, the baseball legend opened Strawberry’s Sports Grill, a burgers-and-wings outpost in the far reaches of Queens. “I work the room and come in and say hello to everybody,” Mr. Strawberry said. “This is just part of being who I am, being a servant to the people.”

At the height of his fame as a Met and Yankee, the left-handed slugger filled the back pages of tabloids with his exploits on the field, and the front pages with his misadventures off it: arrests for drugs and solicitation, jail.

But he’s a different Straw now. At 48, he spends most of the year in St. Louis, with his third wife, Tracy. He survived cancer, and has been sober and devoutly Christian for six years, he said. The former troublemaker, it seems, is committing the next chapter of his life to erasing his reputation from the previous one.

And nothing says humble like a sports bar in Queens.

“I don’t have to be here,” said Mr. Strawberry, who plans to return to New York a few times a month to oversee the restaurant with his partner, Eytan Sugarman. “But my name is a different name today, and I don’t want to use my name for something just to put my face on it.”

In that way, his sports grill is a far cry from the typical celebrity vanity restaurants, like Britney Spears’s long-shuttered Nyla in Midtown. Instead of a nightclubby area, a quiet retail strip of law offices and delis is home to the restaurant, in a placid neighborhood of tree-lined streets and Tudor-style houses. The restaurant itself is understated: earth tones, dark woods and sports memorabilia. The 2,800-square-foot establishment could be mistaken for a hotel-chain steakhouse somewhere in the Midwest.

Photo

GLORY DAYS Darryl Strawberry hitting a home run in 1999 for the Yankees against Boston.Credit
Barton Silverman/The New York Times

But for Mr. Strawberry, Douglaston had its advantages. For one thing, it is close to the Mets’ home turf, Flushing, where he enjoyed his greatest success as a player. Also, it is far from Manhattan, where he rode high as a face of the hard-partying, bar-brawling Mets of the 1980s.

And that distance, he said, is crucial for who he is these days. “I’ve been in Missouri over the last six years of my life and it’s been very peaceful and very normal,” said Mr. Strawberry. Before he decided to jump into the New York restaurant business, he recalled, “I asked myself, ‘Do I really want to get back in the spotlight?’ Because I’ve had that. I’m a different person today.”

His wife, whom he met in 2004, had strong opinions on the matter, too, and insisted that it not be in Manhattan. After two failed marriages, Mr. Strawberry said he has learned to listen to his wife. “We, as men, we take that for granted and don’t realize that they are there for a reason — to help guide us,” he said. “When it all boils down to it, we are so stupid.”

Mr. Strawberry and his wife live in a four-bedroom house in St. Peters, Mo., near St. Louis, with her 17-year-old son, Omar. The couple wake up at 6:30 a.m. for an extended prayer session. After that, he said, they turn on a Christian network and take in the gospel for an hour or two. Much of the day revolves around various ministries that his wife runs, including one called Threshold of Grace, devoted to helping teenagers avoid drugs and other temptations that a young Darryl never could.

Despite his new life, it’s not hard to see glimmers of the old Darryl poke through. His voice — a raspy, baritone rumble — still carries a hint of the sardonic street-smart hustler he once was.

When asked to reminiscence about his 20s, when he was feted as the future of New York baseball, he can still recall little details and the temptations. “Every place I walked in, I was the party,” he said. “They made it clear that I was in the house, and I could have whatever I want.”

But he catches himself before the memories grow too fond. “It’s very sad, it’s a very sick place to be,” he added. “But a lot of guys do it.”

At one point, Mr. Strawberry looked up and shouted “Happy birthday, Mom!” across the room at a woman, about 60. “Was everything O.K.?” She seemed surprised to be doted on by an eight-time All-Star, but flashed him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Before long, busboys were busy clearing tables after the lunch rush. He glanced at his watch and excused himself. Mr. Strawberry had a 4 p.m. tee time at a Long Island country club.

He was running late, but before he left, he stopped and shook hands with a few more customers.

A version of this article appears in print on October 14, 2010, on page E12 of the New York edition with the headline: Making Peace by Serving Wings. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe